Promises Kept
by AnimeMaster24
Summary: After erasing all witch powers from the school, Yamada and Shiraishi find themselves stepping up to new challenges as they take their first clumsy steps forward as a couple. They promised to go to college together, but before that happens she'll have to fix his abysmal grades the old-fashioned way. ONESHOT: YamadaxShiraishi


**Chapter 1: A Promise is a Promise! **

Disclaimer: I do not own the series or characters. This is only a fanfiction story made for fun.

Ryu Yamada had gained quite a reputation as the school delinquent, a somewhat misappropriated title while considering his actions. Even so, he never denied accusations from teachers and classmates when it came time to his laziness and lack of motivation in academics, to the point where these qualities had become the basis for his public persona. He was never very popular to begin with, but recent events had really changed his outlook on life.

His perpetual boredom ceased the day he literally ran into Urara Shiraishi, the school's best student, and easily the most beautiful girl he had ever met. After discovering her witch power of bodily exchange, the two had bonded over this bizarre incident while embarking on an oddball quest to find others like her. It was an amazing experience in so many ways, despite being a big pain in the ass. There was one thing he couldn't deny: Life has been far from boring during that fateful semester.

Yamada groaned in exasperation as he stared at the math problems in front of him, irritably scratching his head with the pointy end of the pencil. Dating Shiraishi had made him the happiest he had ever been, but there were some downsides that he had discovered in the last few weeks. Nothing he wasn't willing to endure for the sake of the girl he fell in love with, although he was hardly thrilled with some of the results.

Urara's blonde head peaked over his shoulder innocently before she shook her head. "Wrong…" she responded with a bluntness that belied her angelic appearance.

"Sheesh, we've been sitting her for the last two hours. You figure I would've got this shit down by now?" He responded with an eye-twitching frown.

Ever since they met, Shiraishi had proven herself to be a straight shooter, speaking her mind even in the most random situations. It made her seem callous, but the class delinquent knew her too well to take it personally anymore. She had spent a long time in solitude due to being bullied by other girls who were jealous of her beauty and smarts, so it was only natural that she could come off as insensitive without meaning anything by it.

"You keep making the same mistakes over and over again. I'm surprised you managed to come this far without being held back."

Yamada let out a relaxed sigh, unable to argue against something so true. "I was never the smartest guy in the world. In fact, I barely managed to pass the entrance exams we took before Freshman Year."

The blonde beauty ran a hand through her hair, a shadow of a smile reaching her lips. "You'll have to do better now that I can't take your tests for you."

"Y'know, at times I kinda regret making that wish. Sure those witch powers were like a royal kick in the balls, but they did come in handy." He placed his hands behind his head and reclined in the wooden chair by popping it back on two legs. "Do you regret it?"

"Not in the least." She answered without hesitation. Moving into the chair beside him, she hesitated a moment before making eye contact with her boyfriend. "Ito was upset by the loss of her favorite subject, but we can still enjoy school without those powers."

"Yeah, I feel the same way. Besides, there's no need to be worried about anything else crazy happening now that the president's not causing trouble… Who seriously would've thought… Miyamura's sister and that bastard, Yamazaki!?"

Shiraishi cocked her head to the side with a genuinely innocent look. "Well, who would've thought that the same would be true for the two of us?"

"I see what you mean." He moved into an upright position, letting the chair land back onto four legs. Yamada turned back to her with a subdued but pronounced smile.

She nodded once before leaning in to take a closer look at his paper. "Oh my, this is worse than I thought. You might want to try mastering basic arithmetic before tackling this trigonometry."

"Hey!?" he snapped with a note of aggression before quickly concealing his displeasure. Ryu Yamada smiled again, the sudden change of his demeanor causing her to look back up at him. "I think we've done enough of this stuff for today. It's the weekend isn't it? So why don't we go out and see a movie, or something?"

They had been cooped up in the school library for around five hours now for this tutoring session, and Yamada was growing tired of it. The bookshelves towered around them like the walls of a fortress, filled to the brim with old names and subject matter that he honestly couldn't care less about. Aside from the librarian and a few people from the top percentile of their class, they're only company were the busts of famous Japanese historical figures. Unfortunately the place was open to students all weekend, and Shiraishi took advantage of it.

"Nice try, but we're not stopping until you can solve all of these problems by yourself."

He deflated almost instantly. "You've gotta be kidding me!"

Shiraishi shook her head with a vixen-like smirk that seemed out of place on her face. "Nope!" she answered cheerfully. "You promised that we could get into college together. Just because I can't take your tests now, doesn't mean you're suddenly off the hook."

The former delinquent opened his mouth to argue, but realized he had no choice but to eat his words. Not only had he promised her months ago that they would attend a university together, but he found himself wanting to stay by her side in much the same manner that she had vowed to be with him. Again he realized that there was no point in arguing with Urara, since she was always quick to each an infallible conclusion long before he could wrap his mind around it.

"Yeah, okay." He admitted with a defeated expression, his eyes sliding upwards to the ceiling of the library. "You said you weren't going without me, so I won't let myself hold you back!"

A small blush came to her cheeks, prompting her to tilt her head to the side. Urara was rarely embarrassed by anything, but Yamada couldn't help but find himself staring in awe. It was one of those rare moments when she wore her emotions in the open, and he couldn't help but think how adorable she looked now. After a moment or two, her complexion returned to normal and she was able to look him in the eye again.

"Hmmm… Is there something on my face?" she asked with a confused expression.

"Um… Nope. You… uh… you look just fine!" He sputtered through a blush of his own, causing her to shyly reciprocate the gesture. Luckily they were seated alone at a table in the corner of the room where no one could see the spectacle.

Shiraishi couldn't help but find his embarrassment cute in its own way, but knowing she had let her own emotions slip was enough reason for her to prod the subject in another direction. "I'm really glad we could come up with this arrangement."

He seized the new topic readily to avoid the previous awkwardness. "When I first said we should spend more time together, you kept saying you had studying to do on weekends. Since that's the way things are, there no reason I can't come with you?"

The blonde genius placed a finger to her lip as she seriously considered the arrangements. "I do spend a lot of time tutoring you instead of focusing on my own work." She stopped upon seeing his gloomy look, dismissing it with a warm expression of her own. "Still, your grades really need to be better if you want to get into a good college. If I won't help you, who will?"

"Well there's always Miyamura, but that guy would probably waste my time showing off his plans for the student council. On the worst days Otsuka's grades are even lower than mine, and Tsubaki spends the weekend at the arcade. There's always Odagiri and Sarushima, but I…"

"No." Urara spoke out suddenly, looking slightly surprised by her own assertion.

"What!?" Yamada looked up, scratching his head with a clueless expression. "I mean Odagiri can be kinda scary when she's pissed off about something, but she's not stupid or anything."

"It's just that I would rather see your progress myself." She amended quickly.

Truthfully Shiraishi had noticed how some of the other witches stared at her boyfriend to the point that it would have made her jealous had he not been too dense to notice. Being known widely as the school troublemaker made it so most of their classmates ignore him, but the few that had actually gotten close to Yamada often stared at him in the same manner that she had done before.

The thought bothered her… Was she suddenly feeling a sense of possessiveness? The sensation felt almost too foreign to be her own, and yet the class ace had found it difficult to suppress when he mentioned the names of the former witches.

The former delinquent placed a hand on her shoulder, recoiling quickly when she jolted in response to his touch. "Sorry if I scared you?" he apologized hastily.

"We should get back to work before the library closes." She completely ignored the previous discussion, instead thrusting another homework assignment underneath his nose.

"Wait a minute! Weren't we just in the middle of something?"

She pointed at him with a considerably more serious expression. "You need to try again if you want to pass math. Since you seem to lack knowledge of the basics, we may need to start again from the first lesson and build it up from there."

Yamada lost his composure, opening and closing his mouth a few times as he realized what she was saying. "That'll take days! Maybe even weeks!" he protested in a pleading tone, his composure slowly returning after a moment. "Look here… I agree that passing the class in one thing, but you never said anything about making me a top student."

Her back was turned to him as she sorted through the books in her bag. "It's all a part of the deal we made." She replied nonchalantly.

"How do you figure that?" he squared up to her assertively.

Shiraishi breathed out slowly before wrapping her hand around his neck, gently pressing their lips together in a loving display. She waited for a second or two before accepting his tongue with her own, neither wanting the embrace to end as he wrapped his own arms around her waist. The world around them disappeared in that moment, the display hid by the shelves of books that surrounded their secluded corner of the library. He took a moment to straighten up once they separated, part of him still shocked at her sudden actions despite the contented look that crept its way onto his face.

Urara leaned in again, causing him to blush even though she didn't intend to kiss him again so soon. "You'll do your best… Promise me?" she questioned with a note of finality.

"Yeah, definitely." He replied with a smirk, remembering again just why he had fallen in love with her. She was so strong-willed yet kind-hearted, and he needed someone like that around to deal with his equally stubborn persona.

"All right…" she replied with the tiniest of nods, seemingly satisfied with his answer as she busied herself with her books again.

"Remember the first time people heard we were dating? A bunch of guys started hating me because the school delinquent was getting intimate with the prettiest girl in school."

"That was when Miyamura first reopened the club." She pointed out with a nostalgic expression. "Things died down quickly, since it was Miyabi who started the rumors."

"I guess no one believes you when you're the girl who cried weird, huh?"

"We made a friend, so I think it was worth it in the long run."

"It was all because of these crazy witch powers that we made most of our friends in this school!" Yamada sat back down and placed his feet on the table, the decidedly rude gesture ignored by his girlfriend. "They brought us together, even though we had nothing in common."

Shiraishi stared into her lap for a moment, her gaze wandering off soon after. "To think I would still be alone if it weren't for what happened on the stairs that day."

"Tell me about it." He agreed with a smile. "Back then if someone told me I would buddy up with the smartest kids in school and develop magical powers, I would've asked them what kind of drugs they were smoking. Can't blame me, can you?"

"None of us are exactly the same people we were back then, not even you." She stated with a calming expression. "And now school has actually become fun for all of us, and it's all because we were given those powers."

"It's a Hell of a lot better than it was, I'll admit that much." He shrugged it off. Despite agreeing wholeheartedly, it was not his style to make a big deal out of the good things in life, but just to appreciate them for what they were. Looking up, he finally realized what she had been doing.

"I thought your plan was to stay here and study. Are you gonna ditch me early?"

"I finished my homework quite a while ago, so there's no need for me to leave everything out…." Urara crossed her arms over her Japanese text and shifted nervously. "The truth is, I was reconsidering your offer to see a movie. That is, if you're still up to it."

Yamada looked positively amazed for a moment, but quickly hid it from her as best he could. "What do you say we go out next weekend instead? Y'know… Once I get a chance to figure this stuff out. It's too soon for me to give up."

"That didn't stop you from slacking off before?"

"Can't have you attending a crappy university with me because I couldn't measure up to your grades." He stated, looking oddly serious. When her expression remained blank, he decided to continue. "A promise is a promise!"

The blonde student ace was puzzled by his sudden change of heart, but it only took her a moment to realize he was doing all of this for both of them. A lump began to form in her throat as she was touched by his kindness, but she swallowed it and answered him with a nod. "If that's what you want, Yamada-kun."

Rather than answer her directly, Ryu crumpled up his heavily marked worksheet, taking out a new piece of paper to start over from fresh. Shiraishi set down her bag and sat beside her boyfriend, her naturally callous exterior melting away as she found herself snuggling into his arm. While the beginning of their relationship had been a rocky one, she slowly found herself reacting warmly to him in a way she never had towards anyone else. Now it felt like this was the right place to be.

Yamada turned his cheek away from her in embarrassment as they cracked open another text and set to work. It had been a bumpy road getting to this point, but he had never been happier. Whatever hardships he endured were nothing so long as she could remain by his side forever…

Note to Readers: Just a short post-series oneshot that shows some of the challenges that would still be present even without the witch powers. Hopefully I did a good job on this seeing how this is the first fanfiction I've written for this series. Yamada and the Seven Witches remains one of my favorite school life manga due to its mix of fantasy and fun. Hope you enjoyed it… Sorry for any typos or errors I might've made, but I usually type stories late at night.

In any case, I would really appreciate some nice reviews for this work. Love longer critiques, but I'll accept even a quick "good job" if you don't have much to say. If enough people liked this, I might be willing to drop more one-shots exploring other major characters in this series. Just drop a review and tell me.


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